Keeletemaatiline arutelu Postimehes ja Eesti Päevalehes 2004.-2007. aastal

The main objective of this bachelor's thesis was to find out which topics and debates about foreign language rose up in the Postimees and the Eesti Päevaleht during 2004-2007. I also wanted to find out how important the topic was? What were the viewpoints of people discussing the matters? Which languages got more coverage? Finally, I wanted to know whose opinions had bees used in the articles and when certain topics arose. In my bachelor’s thesis I used quantitative- and qualitative research methods. I constructed an encoding-model to help me in my quantitative method. I have written a seminar-thesis on the same subject (Saarmann, 2007), where I had chosen a shorter period and two extra dailies – the SL Õhtuleht and the Äripäev. In my seminar-thesis I found out the basic lines in foreign language coverage. I also found out that there were only a few articles in the latter two newspapers, so I left them out of my bachelor’s thesis. Empirical and theoretical material was taken form European institutions publications, various researches and study materials and from a couple of articles published in Estonia. I studied the languages taught in Estonia’s language-schools on my own. In the Eesti Päevaleht and the Postimees there were 156 articles altogether during the years 2004 to 2007. In the Postimees there were 91 and the Eesti Päevaleht had 65 articles. The topics were divided into four main categories – the excessive diffusion of the English language, the options of studying different languages, command of language and multilingualism. The main topics were then divided into sub-topics. The most covered topic was „the options of studying foreign languages outside the elementary- and high schools“. The most emotional topic was „excessive diffusion of English language“. The topic was so emotional mainly because it contained a sub-topic – the danger of doctoral studies being taught in English rather than Estonian. The English language was also the most written-about language during the chosen period. Other languages like German, Russian and French had an equal coverage, but they were not even close to English. English and other main languages taught in Estonian elementary- and high schools (German, Russian and French) were proportionally a lot more talked about than other languages. Exotic languages got some attention, but some European languages were overlooked, notably the languages of Estonian neighbours Latvia and Lithuania. An average of 39 articles a year about foreign languages appeared in print. The author of the current thesis thought that main number of articles would come during the year 2004, when Estonia became a member of the European Union. The assumption turned out to be false and it occurred that the number of articles did not depend on the year; rather it depended on the newspaper. In the years 2004 and 2007 the Postimees had much more articles than the Eesti Päevaleht. An expert opinion was used in 15 articles, which the author on the thesis considers to be few. At the same time the opinion of teachers and language-school representatives was sufficient. Experts spoke mainly under the topic - the excessive diffusion of the English language. Many opinion articles were published on that same topic. Author of the thesis finds that more attention should be given to letting people know about different languages. The question of which foreign language to study first is an intriguing one. During the four years chosen, the excessive diffusion of the English language and its subtopics caused a lot of emotions and on this topic the debates and discussions are bound to arise in the future as well.http://www.ester.ee/record=b4015342*es